No faith for the Higgs

I’ve been reading stuff about the Higgs all day and I’ve noticed something: not once has any scientist, even a religious scientist, cited “faith” as justification for believing it exists. When you have evidence, citing faith only weakens your position. In this light it is easy to see how faith and evidence are two different sides of the coin.

You see science, and any reasonable person, withholds judgment until evidence exists. Faith is both a confession that your beliefs have yet to meet that standard and a means to adopt the arrogance of thinking you have. It’s embarrassing, and only in religion is such an embarrassing trait considered a virtue. That alone should tell you all you need to know about religion.

If god cared more about us knowing he exists than he did about the existence of the Higgs boson, religion would never have a use for the word faith. As it stands, it can’t survive without it.

When not defending the planet from inevitable apocalypse at the rotting hands of the undead, JT is a writer and public speaker about atheism, gay rights, and more. He spent two and a half years with the Secular Student Alliance as their first high school organizer. During that time he built the SSA’s high school program and oversaw the development of groups nationwide. JT is also the co-founder of the popular Skepticon conference and served as the events lead organizer during its first three years.

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